Moving on.

The time has come, after thirteen and a bit years to move on. Daughters are both south and we're rattling around in this lovely, but rather large house. It will be going on the market in the next couple of weeks, and we're hoping to find somewhere just as fascinating to live the other side of the Pentland Firth, plus a few hours, or so, down the A9.

 

Old Nisthouse, Harray, Orkney.

 The tidying up and sorting through stuff has taken a bit of an effort, and at the expense of time spent doing more interesting things, however, in the long run it will be worth it.

(Any interest in purchasing may be expressed through our agents, Lows in Kirkwall.)

I have found time to do some birding and whilst there's been nothing as stunning as the Yellowhammer and still no, much anticipated and hoped for, Little Bunting, things have been interesting. The earliest ever Oystercatcher on 31st Jan, early Shelducks and Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a pile of waders on the agricultural fields including 17 Dunlin. Blackbird numbers have fallen but Fieldfares and Redwings have started to move through, presumably heading back north. Pink-feet are more frequent, and Whoopers seem to be on the move.

Oystercatchers at Loch of Bosquoy.

Wigeon on The Shunan.

Whooper Swans going over, six came back east today.

The female Brambling that has been with us for some weeks has recently been joined by this smart male.

I offered to collect some moss and lichen samples that could be used in Poland for research into tardigrades. I duly collected and posted a few samples and these were then processed by JT in York prior to sending to Poland. JT found a few tardigrades in the samples. Following her instructions I looked for and found a couple of tardigrades including this monster at 0.4mm.

JT's photos can be found here - https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAr6Fh - they are excellent.

In the course of going through the vegetation sample I found some heteroptera, not my favourite things to identify. Two species were very common on lichen from the Wee Wood trees.

Anthocoris sp, possibly confusus but I need to dissect this male to find out, tricky dissection apparently.

Lygus sp, but I'm unsure, if so a very tricky genus to ID.

I've been ruminating on Common Gull behaviour. They seem to have two feeding strategies in the fields around us. A few birds hunt individually, flying low above the stubble fields and occasionally dropping on to prey.

Common Gull 2cy.

It seems a higher proportion of these are younger birds, like the 2cy above. I suspect that it is the same individuals each day deploying this strategy.

Other Common Gulls feed in small, or sometimes not so small, flocks in the grassland. These birds walk around feeding, always in a loose flock, coming and going together. Sometimes these birds are foot-paddling.

Common Gulls.

More questions than answers about these different feeding behaviours.

View from the garden, Tuesday evening.